Sci-fi book series mentioned by Vinny

Does anyone know what sci-fi series Vinny was referencing towards the end of the Mass Effect discussion on this week's show?

Probably war hammer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MeVxKZBOfM

HERESY? HERESY!

I could be totally off-base here, but the Relic games and various wiki-holes have given me the impression that it is the God Emperor's psychic energy that allows FTL travel via the Warp in the 40K universe, but I'd hardly call that dude an AI.

@Triumvir said:

I could be totally off-base here, but the Relic games and various wiki-holes have given me the impression that it is the God Emperor's psychic energy that allows FTL travel via the Warp in the 40K universe, but I'd hardly call that dude an AI.

Yeah I thought that's what he did as well, or he powered the psykers which guided the ships through the Warp. Dude also keeps evil Gods at bay. Pretty busy being dead.

I was under the impression Vinny was referring to Hyperion.

Also, don't read past the first book. Seriously.

(Well, actually, the second book might be worth going through, but you'll only be hurting yourself. And anything with Endymion in the title I regret reading.)

It sounded like the Hyprion Cantos by Dan Simmons

I could be totally off-base here, but the Relic games and various wiki-holes have given me the impression that it is the God Emperor's psychic energy that allows FTL travel via the Warp in the 40K universe, but I'd hardly call that dude an AI.

@Inkerman: It's something like that. I've actually got a fat stack of Warhammer books to tear through over the holiday break. I even bought a model Dreadnought to put together and paint. No intention of playing the table-top stuff, but the games have hooked me on the universe, like they did to Vinny.

I ASKED HIM ON TWITTER BUT NO RESPONSE.

I think it's Revelation Space.

@Bistromath said:

I was under the impression Vinny was referring to Hyperion.

Also, don't read past the first book. Seriously.

Duly noted and added to my reading list. Thanks, dude.

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Triumvir

I could be totally off-base here, but the Relic games and various wiki-holes have given me the impression that it is the God Emperor's psychic energy that allows FTL travel via the Warp in the 40K universe, but I'd hardly call that dude an AI.

Yup. Navigators use the Astronomicon to find their way through the warp to travel huge distances and its powered by the Emperors psychic energy and also I'm a huge dork.

I think you're in good company, then. Heh.

Keeping in mind that whatever series it is that Vinny was mentioning, he was basically spoiling a pretty major event in that series, I think he may have been referring to the Hyperion books by Dan Simmons. It's a 4-book series, and the first book actually won the Hugo Award and Locus Award the year it was published. While I really didn't care for the last 2 books, the first 2 books in the series are really quite good, especially the first one. The warp gates getting disabled and causing mass chaos and fragmenting humans who are light years from each other happens at the end of the second book.

If you're interested in the series, then I honestly recommend you read the first 2 books and pretend the latter 2 don't exist. The first 2 books resolve in a very satisfying manner, but then the 3rd book invents ways to completely unresolve everything and introduce new antagonists. I'd compare it to how badly The Matrix Reloaded unresolved everything that was implied by the ending of The Matrix. Also I just totally despised the space hippie bullshit at the end of the 4th book.

Though Vinny's description could probably apply to a bunch of sci-fi books, because if your sci-fi story involves warp gates/star gates/mass relays, one way to have a pretty impressive conclusion is to blow them the fuck up/disable them forever. Several writers have had that idea.

@thabigred said:

I ASKED HIM ON TWITTER BUT NO RESPONSE.

SAME HERE!

VINNY WHY DON'T YOU LOVE US ANYMORE?

I wouldn't recommend the Hyperion books. I found them very disappointing, with a shaky, aimless plot, bad characterisation and clunky prose. Normally I can forgive some of these things pretty easily, since I love Vernor Vinge and his characters and prose aren't exactly awesome. He's still far better than Dan Simmons. I got two books into the Hyperion 'cycle', regretted buying that many, and resolved not to buy any more.

@Bistromath said:

I was under the impression Vinny was referring to Hyperion.

Also, don't read past the first book. Seriously.

Glad to see I'm not alone. Actually, beyond the Priest's Tale, which was very good, I didn't find much that was enjoyable about the first book either.

@Bistromath: @ultraman324: Goddammit, that'll teach me to be wordy in answering forum threads.

But yes, the Endymion books really aren't as good. I just never bought the romance that is central to the whole thing, and the ending of the whole thing was stupid. Though I do like the part where in the middle of one of the books, the main character has to pass a kidney stone, and basically spends like 20 pages being out of commission with this kidney stone. I'd be willing to bet several hundred dollars that drew on the author's recent life experiences, and I'm amazed an editor didn't give that section the axe because it had no relevance to anything at all.

@ultraman324 said:

It sounded like the Hyprion Cantos by Dan Simmons

Yes. Specially the Fall of Hyperion.

@Triumvir said:

@TheSouthernDandy said:

@Triumvir

I could be totally off-base here, but the Relic games and various wiki-holes have given me the impression that it is the God Emperor's psychic energy that allows FTL travel via the Warp in the 40K universe, but I'd hardly call that dude an AI.

Yup. Navigators use the Astronomicon to find their way through the warp to travel huge distances and its powered by the Emperors psychic energy and also I'm a huge dork.

I think you're in good company, then. Heh.

FOR THE EMPEROR!

From what I gather...Mass Effect actually is the catalyst that sets off the Age of Strife. Warp travel has been established and aliens have been subjugated. Now without the technology to travel "through the warp" so to speak, our human colony brothers will be lost for thousands of years. Now awaiting the arrival of the Emperor to start the Great Crusades. ITS ALL CONNECTED PEOPLE! (Also machines integrating with humans = Adeptus Mechanicus)

In the meantime, read Foundation by Asimov.

Vinny just confirmed to me on Twitter that it was indeed Hyperion

@yesac2004 said:

Vinny just confirmed to me on Twitter that it was indeed Hyperion

Show us proof.

@Snail: https://twitter.com/VinnyCaravella/status/279101073703174145

And now I have a new book to read.

@PillClinton said:

And now I have a new book to read.

As fair warning, Hyperion and its sequel paint some really fascinating pictures of interesting places and people, but the plot is hard to follow because it's going in a million directions at once. Also I'm told that you'll get a bit more out of it if you're somewhat well versed on literary history. Specifically, the books have some relation to Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, as well as poet John Keats.

Anyway, the first book is definitely really cool, in the way it tells a bunch of different character's stories that all have fascinating mysteries and are quite different from each other. If you find you really like it, read The Fall of Hyperion and see the author try to weave all of those backstories together and resolve all of them in a satisfactory manner; he doesn't fully succeed, but some interesting shit happens. Then never read the two books that come after that one because they unresolve a fine ending and the plot becomes REALLY directionless, and the ending of the 4th book is pretty lame. And I didn't like the new characters nearly as much as the cast of characters in the first 2 books.

CEASE THIS PRATTLING AT ONCE.

ALL UNITS.

ALL THEORIES.